Ronaldo, Neymar and the Social Media Buzz

Yes, the FIFA World Cup is in full swing and it’s been a week. To show our support and solidarity with the world cup, we will be celebrating FIFA WORLD CUP on Tikkus’ Travelthon. The blog will be painted in FIFA colours and design. You will hear from the world cup straight from Moscow and how that impacts the social media and the digital world.

Tech brands like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat already have the live video streaming right to the world cup for whopping amounts. This is going to be one of the biggest social media events in the world and we see can see the games on our mobile phones and tablets from anywhere at any time.

Brazil left it late with their match with Costa Rica but Neymar saw them through with a last-second goal into the nets. He was, however, killed on Twitter for doing a fake diving effort to win a penalty. Most fans thought that was not in the right spirit and he tried to cheat. The backlash was immense.

FIFA World Cup is a sweet spot for a lot of global brands who are advertising heavily through social media. Brands like Carlsberg beer very creatively showcases the English pub life through its ads for the 2014 FIFA football world cup. The TV viewership was a staggering 3 billion with over 250 million watching it on mobile phones and tablets. The 2018 version of the cup now underway has been touted as the Digital Cup with most of the action happening on the net and social media. Instagram stories launched in 2016 is also a big hit with over 500 million daily active users. It has a lot of brands trying to get some brand mileage from the site. Then you have Twitter that has cut a deal with Fox Sports. Yes, they will be live streaming football show with celebrities right out of Red Square Moscow. So we have special programming just for Twitter and the social medium.

The decibel of noise and conversation on the platforms has also risen. Data shows that Twitter had 672 million tweets during the FIFA World Cup of 2014 and that figure will go up 17% more in this world cup. Online video and video-on-demand are also boosting the nature and vibrancy of content on display and the user can have a more live and real experience just through their handsets or tablets. Now that’s a lot of eyeballs, a perfect place for international brands to flourish. Brands like Hyundai has benefited immensely from brand and marketing partnership with FIFA. Although during the past FIFA and its financial scandals have diluted the brand a bit, the top-tier 8 brands have extended their renewed support but the middle-level brands have dropped out of the 2018 fixture and only 5 mid-tier brands remain.

Adidas similarly has partnered with FIFA for its brand building efforts. All said and done, the brands that can engage the football fans and bring them closer to their football stars and heroes will really benefit from this Digital FIFA 2018 world cup.